When the beloved science publication got too political, its corporate owners stepped in. Now its future is uncertain
In March of 2026, in a nondescript, 46th-floor office overlooking lower Manhattan, about two dozen members of Scientific American’s editorial staff had gathered in person and online to talk openly about their approach to political coverage.
David Ewalt, the editor in chief, wanted them all to understand something: The magazine was not “kowtowing” to the Trump administration. In fact, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Nation, he asked staff present to “raise your hand if you’ve ever heard me say not to cover a political story.”
Two people raised their hands.
For well over a year, rumors had been circulating among the staff about top-level editors’ rejecting pitches they saw as too political, controversial articles triggering angry phone calls from Scientific American’s corporate owner, and even, on at least one occasion, ownership forcing editors to blunt language critical of the Trump administration.
Then there was what happened to the opinion department. In the first months of the new administration, it had been publishing about 15 pieces a month, many of which criticized Trump’s attacks on scientific research. But after the department published a particularly provocative column in May 2025—“Science Tells Us the U.S. Is Heading toward a Dictatorship”—management, in what one staffer would later call an “unprecedented” move, had told the department to “pause” publishing new articles until the new editor in chief started.
The opinion department’s hiatus had worried some people more than others—there were legitimate journalistic reasons to want to emphasize breaking news, even if not everyone agreed with them. But by March 2026, nine months into Ewalt’s tenure, the opinion section seemed to be gone for good—and other departments were feeling political pressure, too. That, along with a round of layoffs, a restructuring of the newsroom, and veiled threats about the future of the magazine, had left the staff frustrated and looking for answers. Now that the new editor in chief was finally coming to the full editorial staff “to listen as well as to speak,” as one staffer put it, they began asking questions.
